The Only Road
by PragmaticHominid
Summary: Azazel's first stop after Cuba is for booze, so Erik and Janos take the opportunity to discuss their pasts and the future. "My name's Janos." "Magneto," Erik said, testing it out. It wasn't the first time he'd tried on a new name for size, but there was no denying that this one was an awkward fit. He supposed he would grow into it. Janos laughed. "Man, for real?"


_**Author's Note:**__ This fic is a remix of HeyJupiter's "A grandes males, grandes remedios." The original can be read on AO3._

Had Charles been here, Erik reflected as he looked around the pub that Azazel had brought them to, he would have smiled brightly and called the place 'rustic,' but he would have kept his hands in his pockets to avoid touching anything. Erik had been in worse places, though not recently.

The pub was empty except for a single man behind the bar. He had been rinsing glasses in the sink, but when the five Mutants appeared in a cloud of smoke he froze, hands still submerged in the greasy suds.

Azazel broke from the column, taking a few steps toward the bartender. "_Po'shol von_," he advised, inclining his head toward the door. "Scat!" The man didn't need to be told again - he scrambled over the bar and out the door, and he hadn't run far before he began to shout.

Azazel reached behind the bar for a bottle of vodka and three shot glasses and he, Angel and Raven went off together to a dark corner together.

Erik watched them go, annoyed and more than a little dumbfounded. "Seriously?" he grumbled to himself. "_Lech l'azazel..._"

It had been a gamble, trusting the teleporter to take them anywhere, so Erik supposed it could have been worse. The fact that Azazel hadn't tried to dump him somewhere over the Pacific Ocean was probably a good sign, but it was hard to say what might be expected of Shaw's former followers at this point, and he was wary. Things might turn ugly very quickly.

Erik caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned to see Shaw's other man - the one with the ability to control the wind - at his shoulder. Erik had gotten Azazel's name third-hand - Charles gave it to him, having gotten it from Moira, who had overheard it from Shaw - but Erik didn't know even that much about this Mutant. The only thing Erik could say for sure was that the man was capable of using his ability to wreak astonishing carnage.

He had a shot glass in either hand and now he held one out to Erik.

Erik took the glass and sank down into a chair behind one of the tables, still keeping an eye on Azazel and the women. He wanted to be careful; he felt responsible for Raven.

After a brief hesitation, the other man joined him at the table. He followed the course of Erik's gaze. "It isn't fair, is it?" he asked in Spanish.

The question had been rhetorical - he hadn't expected to be understood - and he was obviously surprised when Erik answered in the same language. "Nothing is," he said, his own thoughts far away.

The other man winced at Erik's accent but played along. "My name's Janos."

"Magneto," Erik said, testing it out. It wasn't the first time he'd tried on a new name for size, but there was no denying that this one was an awkward fit. He supposed he would grow into it.

Janos laughed. "Man, for real?"

"Erik Lehnsherr, then."

"German?" Janos asked, and now he wasn't laughing anymore. Now he was suspicious, but trying not to be transparent about it.

Erik elected not to answer. He watched Janos with hooded eyes, wondering how much the other man - how much any of the Mutants he'd managed to inherit - had known about the history of their former boss.

"My father fought in Madrid," Janos said into the long silence. It was evident that he knew that he had made a mistake but did not understand exactly where he had gone wrong.

"How interesting," Erik said, fiddling with the sleeve of his flight suit; the zippers were many and complex. He didn't bother to look up. "On which side?"

"Maybe you are trying to start a fight with me," Janos speculated, and Erik agreed privately that this might very well be the case. He had expected the other man's voice to roar like the winds he commanded, but even now Janos spoke with startling softness, and Erik had to strain to hear him. "He died for the Republic."

Erik peeled back the sleeve of his flight suit and turned his arm over to allow Janos to see the numbers tattooed there.

Erik himself did not look at the numbers; he watched Janos's face very closely to see if he would react incorrectly. He could sense a loaded rifle under the bar, a rusting SVT-40 left over from the war, and if need be he knew he could have the weapon in his hands very quickly. The teleporter (assuming he was the sort to come to the defense of his comrade) might be more of a challenge, but Erik had already taken note of several small fragments of shrapnel buried between his shoulder blades - further relics of the war, most likely - and he would only need an instant to send those bits of metal on a new and deadly trajectory.

Erik's mind had run through this entire plan in the time it took for Janos's eyes to grow wide. For a long moment Janos did not seem to know what to say. His jaw worked but no sound came out. "I see," he finally said.

"Of course," Erik said matter-of-factly, "I am a Jew."

"Alright," Janos said. "Alright, but look - the war was hell -"

"I know it," Erik said. It seemed likely that Janos was conflating certain things, but he didn't bother to correct him. Outside the pub he could hear people shouting, the strident voices egging others on. The locals were building themselves up for something, and now Erik could smell smoke.

"It was bad where I was from, but I never had to - I can't even imagine -"

"I know it," Erik said again pointedly, cutting him off. He could tell that if Janos was allowed to continue he would very likely begin to babble. He might try to apologize. Erik had no stomach for it.

"Shaw said there was another war coming - the war between Mutants and humans was coming - and they'd destroy us if they could, so better to get them to kill each other off first."

Janos contemplated his drink, finished it off, refilled the glass. He inclined the bottle toward Erik and Erik nodded his consent.

"_L'Chayim_," Erik said, raising his glass, and from a sense of _bon ami_ Janos did the same, repeating Erik awkwardly and without comprehension.

After that Erik turned his glass upside down on the bar and slid it away. He understood himself to be a vicious drunk and nothing would be served by setting that part of himself free now.

"Is that what we're getting into with you?" Janos asked. "Because man, I want to tell you that I am sick of war. I don't want anything to do with it -"

Azazel spoke up from the corner, cutting in, and Erik wondered if he'd been listening the whole time. He spoke in English for Raven's benefit, quoting poorly, "'Maybe you aren't interested from war, but war very interested from you."

"Can it!" Janos told him in English. "He's a bloody trot, can you believe that?" he told Erik in a conspiratorial tone, switching back to Spanish.

It was evident that he was trying to shift the subject as far away from the tattoo on Erik's arm as he could, and that was fine by Erik. He had no interest in discussing it at length with the other man, of baring his scars and trading childhood traumas - he doubted very much that he would ever trust Janos well enough for that - but had only wanted to make certain that things were clear.

"That explains the goatee," Erik said, and Janos's soft laugh was only slightly marred by bad nerves. "His English is appalling," he continued confidentially.

"Maybe," Janos allowed, "but his Spanish is better than yours. Anyway, as languages go English is highly overrated."

"Alas," Erik said in English, "my priorities have been all wrong. But then - _C'est la vie_. I'll have to work on it."

Erik leaned forward. "Azazel is right, you know. The war is coming, whether or not we want it. When the humans find out about us, they won't be willing to leave us alone - they won't even let us live. So we will have to fight - that's the only road open to us."

"_C'est la vie_," Janos repeated, spreading his hands. "Life is struggle," he said, and Erik saw that he had told Janos nothing that he had not already understood.

"We won't be the ones to start the war," Erik went on. "But we will defend ourselves. I intend to live. I intend that we will live."

Janos raised his glass in easy agreement and tipped it back. Erik supposed that he could work with this man. He was not sure if he could ever really like Janos, was certain that he would never trust him completely - he was, along with Azazel and Emma Frost, too compromised by association with Shaw for that - but he did not think it would be altogether difficult to stand with him as a Mutant in the struggle.

In the corner, Raven giggled at something Azazel had said. Janos raised an eyebrow. "She's young," he remarked.

"She's older than you'd think," Erik said. "Don't worry about her - she'll catch up."

Whatever was going on over there had Angel annoyed. She got to her feet and went to the window, pulled back the curtain. Erik could see the light of torches reflected in the window glass. "There's a mob out there," she noted. "Pitchforks and everything. I think they're planning on burning us out."

"They tend to do that," Azazel said, without much interest, before turning his attention back to Raven.

Erik was sure Raven was nervous about the scene outside but she was rolling with it, glancing at him from time to time to see how to act. Erik himself had a terror of structural fires but he kept the fear carefully compartmentalized so it did not bother him now.

"What about Azazel - can I trust him?" He asked the question softly - the teleporter seemed to have quite the sense of hearing - and watched Janos closely to see how his loyalties broke down, how he took to a stranger asking prying questions about one of his comrades. Angel was one thing, but he was dubious about how easily the two men had come over to him after he'd killed Shaw; it might mean they had the good sense not to be too fussed about Shaw but it might also mean that they were snakes who would write him off just as easily.

Janos shrugged gracefully. "He's a good enough man if you remember there's nothing human about him."

The shouting outside was louder now, more earnest. The villagers had made their minds up about what they were going to do. "It would be inconvenient if he decided to leave us here now," Erik said.

Janos shrugged with one shoulder. "No problem for me to blow through that lot out there - and I'm sure you could handle them yourself - but knowing Azazel we're in the middle of some great Siberian nowhere."

"How to get back from wherever we are to wherever we're going would be the primary problem," Erik offered.

"Right," Janos said. "But he won't leave us." He paused for a moment, then asked, "Where are we going, anyway?"

Erik paused, considering; he supposed he should have worked that part out already.

A rock flew through the window, trailed by a cascade of broken glass, and Erik guessed that he would need to make a decision very quickly.

Raven had let out a small scream of surprise when the window shattered, but she killed it quickly; Erik had had his doubts about her but he thought she was going to be okay; she was brave enough to make it and she seemed like a quick learner.

Azazel climbed languidly to his feet and headed toward Janos's and Erik's table, and Raven followed after him. Angel, too, was converging on the table.

"How is Madrid this time of year?" Erik asked Janos mildly.

"It's got to be better than here," he answered.

Raven squeezed hard when she took his hand. Azazel had her left hand, Janos his, Angel Janos's. "That should do for the time being," Erik said.

And they went.


End file.
